OREANDA-NEWS. February 04, 2015. SSE’s Greater Gabbard team was delighted to host a visit last week from Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Caroline Flint MP, at the Lowestoft operations base.

During her visit, Ms Flint met with employees and support businesses based in Lowestoft and took a tour of the facilities at the base including the control room, helipad and workboats used to service the offshore wind farm.

Stephen Rose, Head of Offshore Wind Generation, who hosted Ms Flint on her visit stated: “We were pleased to welcome Caroline Flint MP to the operations base. As a responsible developer and operator, it gave us the opportunity to demonstrate the investment and many socio economic benefits the project has delivered for people in the local areas during construction and operation.”

Caroline Flint MP stated: “I’d like to thank SSE for hosting my visit to the Greater Gabbard Offshore wind farm. It was useful to see an offshore wind farm operations base in action and hear about the benefits, such as job creation, community funding and opportunities for businesses, which a project like this can bring to the local, regional and UK economy.”

The 140 turbine, 500MW Greater Gabbard project - which is a 50-50 joint venture partnership between SSE and RWE Innogy - is one of the world’s largest operational offshore wind farms. The project completed construction in September 2012.